Monday, August 22, 2016

It occurs to me thinking back over the five acts that make up Fire Drill’s latest curatorial effort Boiling Point bringing together local and visiting multidisciplinary performing artists, “This is probably the kind of thing people who have never been to the Minnesota Fringe Festival think the Fringe is.” All five performers - Jill Flanagan (from Chicago), Pedro Pablo Lander (Minneapolis), HIJACK (Minneapolis), Lazer Vortex (Minneapolis), and Lorene Bouboushian (New York City) are all fairly “out there” either in terms of what they’re presenting to the audience, or how they’re presenting it. Unlike previous Fire Drill hosting events, Boiling Point is lighter on the spoken word and dance side of things and more on the performance art end of the spectrum (not that there’s anything wrong with that).

Another thing that occurred to me is that, as a gay man, I’m probably encountering the bodies in most of these pieces in a different way than, say, any woman or a straight man might. For want of a more delicate way of phrasing it, I don’t tend to see a lot of breasts or vaginas up close and personal as I move through my life. Three of the acts in Boiling Point certainly fixed that. Whereas other audience members probably approach the flesh on display with either an air of familiarity or even titillation, I found myself being reminded, “Oh, right, that’s what one of those looks like.”

Revisiting the press release after experiencing the art can be very illuminating. Our opener Jill Flanagan is couched in these phrases:

Isn’t it just like a woman to be mischievous, impetuous, and impulsive, to want the freedom to do what she likes? Chicago-based performance and noise artist Jill Flanagan (Forced Into Femininity) thinks so, and she’ll spread her twisted hysterical ideology with a little soft shoe routine and some jazz standards.

Noise artist, that’s a very useful label. In the moment, I kept thinking, “Why is that death metal/industrial noise so loud?” It was so consistently loud - and constantly present - that it had to be a choice. It also drove a couple of children with sensitive ears outside until the cacophony let up and Jill was done. Jill was also very transgressive in her use of space and the audience - quite literally climbing over the top of people and pushing her way through the assembled crowd. The decibel level was so high that, even bellowing at the top of her lungs into a microphone, a lot of the time you couldn’t make out what she was singing or why (and again, this felt deliberate).

Identifying herself as a trans woman in the piece, Jill had drawn in some cleavage for herself, but made it clear early on that the drawn-in cleavage was redundant. She whipped out a breast and let it flap around as she sashayed and ran about the space. All this may sound like a sort of assault on the audience, but that wasn’t Jill’s game. Jill regularly made it clear that she appreciated the audience being present (and needed them present) in order to tell a part of her story. While unapologetic and by no means shy, Jill’s strategy was nonetheless to draw in rather than repel her spectators.

Local performer Pedro Pablo Lander gets this set up:

Choreographer and performer Pedro Pablo Lander, who comes to the Twin Cities by way of Caracas, Venezuela and Winona, Minnesota, will share a new work with a soundscore by Joyce Liza Rada Lindsay. Lander will mine “the history within this body, the violent, misogynist, toxic masculinity...the femme, the masc, both, neither, all, the queer, the fantasy, she, he, me.”

The way this concept was manifested was with Lander in a dress, long hair flowing, at the top of the piece. An older woman behind him soon asserted herself as a disapproving mother figure. No sooner had Lander accented his face with makeup and styled his hair than the mother figure stepped in to correct him. Their dance was a fight for dominance, which the mother figure ultimately won. Soon the hair was restored to something less feminine in style, Lander’s head dunked in a bucket of water and the makeup roughly smeared off his face. After redressing Lander in men’s clothes, she stepped aside as if her work was done. Lander had the last word, however, using neckties for a purpose she didn’t suspect.

Local dance duo HIJACK are described as follows:

Minneapolis-based HIJACK, the collaboration of Kristin Van Loon and Arwen Wilder, will present a new dance: Yet another Aftermath. Of escalators of disco lights of uncles of labia of dignity.

Van Loon and Wilder’s piece was easily the one that was the most purely movement-based of the presentations - dance for dance’s sake, if you will. Unlike a number of the free-wheeling offerings, HIJACK’s moves were all tightly controlled and focused. There was no feeling of improv. And like a performer whispering, their highly detailed work made me lean in more to catch the nuances and differences in movement as the piece progressed. Couldn’t tell you how the escalators factor in, but the disco lights were charming, and as in all instances of female empowerment that night, the labia, though not on public display here, could be nothing but dignified.

Another Minneapolis-based performance artist, Lazer Vortex, had this write-up:

Minneapolis-based performer, video maker, nightlife wizard, and dancer Lazer Vortex, who makes work that is both campy and reverent, will share a new piece that asks: What does healing look like in an endlessly oppressive world? How do we embody utopias? In this work, psychic warfare requires a very sharp psychic sword.

You know you’re in for it when during preset the artist asks, quite innocently, “Uh, where’s the ax?” The ax was found and placed among the Lazer Vortex’s other props. Lazer Vortex’s initial costume was just a lot of strategically placed criss-crossing electrical tape - purple, if my eyes weren’t deceiving me. With Euro-pop blasting in the background, Laser Vortex (is Lazer her first name in this context? should I call them Mx. Vortex?)… Anyway, Lazer Vortex removed most of the tape and gradually moved on to a different outfit. This was a fitted clear plastic shroud of sorts, also held together with electrical tape (the kind of piping you’d consider frosting on their gingerbread person silhouette).

Lazer Vortex’s co-star in the piece was a sort of baby walker contraption, though not so much a contraption a baby could walk in as just kind of rock and wobble back and forth in. A way to keep your baby in place and upright, with no danger of them wandering away from you. Well, an adult has other uses for such a device. And when they tire of it, they can always just make short work of the plastic thing with their ax. Lazer Vortex spent the time being 1 part seductive to 9 parts ridiculous, mocking the notion that their nudity was at all titillating. If you were going to ogle them, they were going to mock the idea of being ogled in this situation, making the whole thing more playful and silly.

To close things up for the night, we got the work of our other visitor:

New York City-based performance artist Lorene Bouboushian is interested in vulnerability, shame, and the heroic in despair. At Fresh Oysters, she will perform “--extent of Explosive lament on sale--”, a solo on boiling points, class, boundaries of the body, discomfort, and then again why are we here?

Like Jill at the top of the evening, there were no boundaries with Lorene. She was everywhere. No corner of the space or the audience was left unexplored. Rather than a lot of musical accompaniment, Lorene opted for projections on the wall with which she could interact. She also provided running commentary on her own dance moves, her exploration of the space, the crowd, and herself. Most of it was geared to be amusing and self-deprecating, a lot of it (funny or not) was contemplative, a little of it was sad or pleading. After changing into a much more revealing outfit, she decided it was time to crowd surf. The crowd stood to oblige, she got up in the air, and was passed around for awhile, discussing her place in society and in art. It’s instructive when a person is in danger of falling how quickly everyone gets over the reluctance to touch or get close to others. Lorene returned to earth for some final meditations, and then was done.

I feel a little weird labeling Boiling Point for convenience as “ladies night” because none of the artists had much time or patience for standard notions of femininity. They were just there to be artists and present work, and if anything, the expectations of the label woman, rather than simply human, just got in their way - and they were more than happy to push right past it and make you look at them differently. (Note: I was informed after initially posting this review that it would be incorrect to reer to Lazer Vortex as a woman. It's not a label they use - so I've switched out the "she" pronouns for "they" in their section above.)

If there were specific, explicit messages intended by each segment of the evening, I’m not sure how effectively those were transmitted to the audience. The feeling of each sequence, however, was unique and unusual, and maybe being pushed as an audience through that sort of artist’s lens is enough for a piece that only lasts around 15 minutes. This was a more challenging assortment of performers than Fire Drill has hosted before, but still very worthwhile. Keep your eye out for the next one of these. They’re always bound to gift you with something you either don’t see all that often, or have never seen before.

Four Duets and One More - Barker Center - full review to come
Tweet review - #mnfringe 4 Duets and 1 More: good dance, better ones were when relationship between dancers was clearer - 4 stars

8:30pm - 4 STAR ENCORES

It Always Rained In Paris - Phoenix Theater - full review to come
Tweet review - #mnfringe It Always Rained In Paris: this show should have annoyed me, yet there were parts of it that were quite lovely - 4 stars

The Last Late Night Show On Earth - Bryant Lake Bowl - full review to come
Tweet review - #mnfringe Last Late Night Show: fun, if dark, idea left largely unexploited; a little less dead w/the deadpan? - 2 stars

Four Duets and One More (FINAL PERFORMANCE) - Barker Center - full review to come
Tweet review - #mnfringe 4 Duets and 1 More: good dance, better ones were when relationship between dancers was clearer - 4 stars

It Always Rained In Paris (FINAL PERFORMANCE) - Phoenix Theater - full review to come
Tweet review - #mnfringe It Always Rained In Paris: this show should have annoyed me, yet there were parts of it that were quite lovely - 4 stars

My Uncanny Valley (FINAL PERFORMANCE) - Strike Theater - full review to come
Tweet Review - #mnfringe My Uncanny Valley: there's a lot of cool random ideas, if they'd just let one play out long enough for it to land - 2 stars

Friday, August 12, 2016

Tweet review - #mnfringe It Came From UUFO: Mom says not everything needs to be Shakespeare; she had fun,says it's a 5; split the difference - 4.5 stars

Mom had a ball at It Came From UUFO, and kept bringing it up to other people we met around the Fringe because she had such a good time. When I didn’t immediately share her unbridled enthusiasm, she chided me with an “Oh come on, not everything needs to be Shakespeare.” Which is true. I normally stay away from Shakespeare at the Fringe. I prefer new plays because the Fringe is such a vital showcase for new work and scrappy new theater companies. And It Came From UUFO is a new play, from a scrappy theater company that’s as regular as the Fringe lottery ping pong balls will allow (past efforts include Fringe 2011’s Rambler Family Ramblers and 2012’s Shakespeare Ate My Brain).

“I love probing - the mysteries of the universe.”

We went because our friend Erin Denman is in the cast but Mom ended up loving everything about it. It Came From UUFO is about the city of West Winsom’s 25th annual UUFO festival, celebrating the time five citizens were abducted by aliens - and four came back. Four is a magic number here as the cast of four (Denman, along with Jeffery Goodson, Joe Hendren, and Cynthia Schreiner Smith) plays a multitude of roles, over 20 in all. The set’s just a big banner behind which the actors rush to put on yet another costume, to emerge as yet another character. At one point I lost track and could have sworn they had at least five actors, until curtain call proved me wrong. Phew.

“Now you’re just being cruel. You know I can’t spell.”

The script is peppered with countless pop culture references, most of them in the scifi/fantasy realm. Hey, any script that drops a “Klaatu barada nikto” reference is OK in my book. Creators Barry Shay and Patsy Puckett have managed to cram about as much content into a Fringe time slot as any person should be allowed to. Blink and you miss it could apply to any number of jokes, characters or plot twists in UUFO. But I’d rather a play try to do too much than too little, so have at it. Really, half the fun is just watching the actors sprint through this thing. There’s even a little low impact audience participation, with the requisite joke about alien probes, of course.

“Duchovny? Really?”

It Came From UUFO is a lark. Approach it in that spirit, and you should have a lovely time.

Matthew Foster (the man at the heart of American Civic Forum, and the brains behind their Fringe show, It Is So Ordered: The Supreme Court’s Greatest Hits) will probably hate me for using this analogy but it’s in support of his really fine production so perhaps he will forgive me. You know the kind of contact high you get off of watching a really good episode of that TV show The West Wing? “Hey! America! Government! Democracy! Maybe we can make it work after all!” That feeling? That’s how you feel as you sit and listen to the performers in It Is So Ordered. And the even greater thing here is, it’s not fictional. This stuff actually happened.

“Our Constitution was deliberating written to be frustrating.”

Our host Matthew Kessen (no doubt channeling the voice of Mr. Foster) provides the context and historical/cultural connective tissue between the speakers, but the show is really about showcasing the words and opinions (and dissents) of Supreme Court justices past and present on race, education, and the civil rights of America’s citizens - all its citizens, whether they like or approve of one another or not. The dissents are often more compelling, and prescient, than the opinions on the winning side of cases, so there’s a mix of both.

“The Supreme Court has lit more than a few dumpsters on fire over the course of its history.”

The night I saw it, the wry wit and intellect of the late Antonin Scalia in a case revolving around professional golf was being read by Pat Harrigan. Duck Washington got to take on the mantle of the fiesty Ruth Bader Ginsburg talking about drug testing in schools. Moving backward from the 21st century into the early half of the 20th, Tim Uren took on the pledge of allegiance to the US flag as Justice Robert H. Jackson. phillip andrew bennett low tackled the subject of race back in the late 19th century as Justice John M. Harlan. Rachel Flynn got to take down Colorado’s anti-gay Amendment 2 as current Justice Anthony Kennedy. And Zoe Benston rounded out the evening as Justice Sonia Sotomayor dissenting in a case grappling with the limits of police power. Stirring rhetoric in the hands of great actors is a win-win. Foster and company realize the best thing to do is just get out of the way and let the justices speak.

“The Fourth Amendment doesn’t forgive a police officer just because he didn’t know any better.”

It might not sound to everyone, on paper, like a real barn-burner of an inspiring Fringe show, but trust me, it is. It was the end of Mom’s fringing for the season (she only stays for the first six days of the festival - but she crams a show in every available timeslot). It Is So Ordered was Mom’s 30th and final 2016 Fringe show, but it was a perfect way to make you feel a little better about where we are, how far we’ve come, and where we’re headed. These days, that’s a gift. More American Civic Forum, please.

Tedious Brief Productions switches up the formula yet again, and cranks out another very entertaining pop-culture/classics mash-up. This time, instead of putting Pulp Fiction through an iambic pentameter translator (Bard Fiction), or doing a Shakespearean sequel which bears a striking similarity to a scifi/horror franchise (Tempests), they just put two Fringe interpretations of two classics up side by side and watch them overlap and meld into one another. Because if Joseph Campbell taught us anything, it’s that the template of a hero story and recycled Hollywood formulas have more in common than we liked to admit.

“I’ll be there faster than you can say ‘wise old teacher who clearly won’t last the length of the film.’”

The set-up is that two battling sets of artists both think they’re scheduled for the same slot in the Fringe Festival. Clarence Bratlie Wethern gets there first with his one-man tribute to the legend of Beowulf. Kayla Dvorak, Brandon Ewald, Delta Rae Giordano, David Schlosser and Noe Tallen interrupt because they want to get started on their musical version of the cult favorite Patrick Swayze bouncer movie Road House. One problem - their Swayze stand-in for the role of Dalton (Derek Meyer) is involved in a half-dozen other Fringe shows with competing schedules at venues all over town and he’s stuck in transit. Grudgingly, the two productions decide to share the stage and slowly start to realize if they play off of one another they can cover more ground - and maybe offer each other either a little more fun, or a little more prestige, depending on which way the wind is blowing in the plot at that particular moment.

“OK, you’re fixed. And I find you sexy now.”

Writers Aaron Greer, Ben Tallen and Brian Watson-Jones get the best of all worlds here. They get to make fun of literature, movies, theater, their own old-school/modern classics mash-up strategy, and Fringe artists all at the same time. Director Carin Bratlie Wethern and the entire ensemble are all enjoying the hell out of this concept.

“My evil’s starting to wear off.”

Mom was convinced that the audience the day we attended, like her, were mostly English majors because they were getting all the Beowulf jokes just as easily as the Road House jokes. But you don’t need to have a working knowledge of either to enjoy the lunacy. Mead Hall fills in all the blanks for the novice viewer. It also offers added benefits for anyone more familiar with the source material (for instance, for those of you just waiting to see how they work the Road House line “I used to f**k guys like you in prison” into Beowulf, you will not be disappointed.)

“That name will remind us all that you’re more than just a love interest.”

Mead Hall is enjoyable no matter the direction from which you’re approaching it. Great Fringe fare for one and all.

This is a good example of how a preview, particularly for a traveling Fringe artist, can do you a lot of good. I had a slot of fill between shows at HUGE that I really wanted to see on Wednesday (Yes! Feed The Monkey! and Hostil Watching - more on those charming oddballs later). I didn’t really want to travel too far and run the risk of missing a show (plus as it turned out, that was the night of the flash flood warnings and torrential rain so, definitely staying put), that left me in Uptown. Wasn’t really in the mood for dance, so that left out Intermedia. It was either walk down to the BLB or stay at Huge. Looking at both shows, one had better reviews than the other (often from people who reviewed multiple shows, another good sign) AND I’d seen the artist do a preview at the traveling artist showcase the night before Fringe opened (Fringe Eve, as they say). At the time I thought, hmmm, good storyteller. Not sure if it’ll wind up on my schedule with so much other stuff floating around, but she’s a very good option to have. And that’s what tipped me over to staying at HUGE and seeing Laura Packer perform The Adventures of Crazy Jane and Red Haired Annie: Adventure stories for grown-ups. And boy am I glad I did.

“There will be times when sleep eludes you.”

Laura Packer knows the two most powerful tools in her bag of tricks are her own voice, and her way with crafting words, and she deploys them both to full effect throughout Crazy Jane and Red Haired Annie. The odd thing is, as I think back on it, Packer is not one of those histrionic solo performers who bounce all over the stage, presenting one showy character after another, modulating her voice and its volume up and down the scale. She might gesture with her arms, hands or even just her fingers, but she largely just stays put. And she gets right up in the microphone on a stand and lets her soothing voice do the heavy lifting. That, of course, and the words. Oh, those words.

“A scale from the serpent who encircles the earth.”

Packer creates several fully realized fantastical worlds, full of detail, color, light and sound. There’s a period in one story when the two main characters split up and Packer is switching back and forth between the two storylines of their individual quests. Not only does she cut out in just the right place to leave you in suspense and flip over to the other plotline, she always lands you right back where you left off, so you’re never confused what’s going on. That’s quite a trick, and she nails it so perfectly, you’re liable to overlook just how hard it is.

“The world for a moment sounded like tiny ringing bells.”

Even though the title assures you it’s adventure stories for grown-ups, you could be forgiven for thinking the names Crazy Jane and Red Haired Annie are headliners in some child’s fairy tale. But as entertaining as these stories might be for kids, it feels like only adults are going to get the full impact, understanding how Crazy Jane became crazy, or the “normal” life she left behind, or the stakes involved in saving their friendship, or lost children. I also think adults especially will appreciate Packer’s soothing voice, and her sense of wonder that is also still oddly based in a thinking person’s reality.

“It told of the true color of the sky when the world was young.”

If you’re looking for some solid, top tier storytelling, Laura Packer has you covered. I caught her late, but there’s still one performance left in her run (today, Friday 8/12 at 5:30pm). She’s definitely worth slotting into your schedule. I was not expecting to see this show, or that this was the kind of show I’d enjoy, and yet Laura Packer and The Adventures of Crazy Jane and Red Haired Annie completely won me over.

The Last Late Night Show On Earth - Bryant Lake Bowl - full review to come
Tweet review - #mnfringe Last Late Night Show: fun, if dark, idea left largely unexploited; a little less dead w/the deadpan? - 2 stars

My Uncanny Valley - Strike Theater - full review to come
Tweet Review - #mnfringe My Uncanny Valley: there's a lot of cool random ideas, if they'd just let one play out long enough for it to land - 2 stars

Thursday, August 11, 2016

Tweet review - #mnfringe Now Or Later: it's a very particular style of theater and storytelling; still trying to parse it out - 3 stars

I’ve reluctantly come to the conclusion that I’m probably just not the audience for New Epic Theater. Which is a shame. Artistic Director Joseph Stodola is a talented theater artist with a very specific vision, and I admire that. New Epic works with a killer array of really top notch actors, and their Fringe show Now or Later is no exception. When you’ve got Jennifer Blagen, Ryan Colbert, Peter Moore, Grant Sorenson, and Michael Wieser all crammed into a single hour of Fringe together, it’s almost not fair to the other shows with which it’s competing. The playwright on Now Or Later, Christopher Shinn, is an Obie Award winner and finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. Stodola also laid out the set with its clean lines, fluorescent lighting tube boundaries, sterile furniture, and color palette of blacks, whites and greys. You can’t argue with the packaging of the thing or its ingredients. It just aggravates me more than it engages me. That may be what they want, but it’s not something I want to keep sitting through.

In the program there’s a quote from Bertolt Brecht:“The theater-goer in conventional dramatic theater says: Yes, I’ve felt that way, too. That’s the way I am. That’s life. That’s the way it will always be. The suffering of this or that person grips me because there is no escape for him. That’s great art - Everything is self-evident. I am made to cry with those who cry, and laugh with those who laugh.

But the theater-goer in the epic theater says: I would never have thought that. You can’t do that. That’s very strange, practically unbelievable. That has to stop. The suffering of this or that person grips me because there is an escape for him. That’s great art - nothing is self-evident. I am made to laugh about those who cry, and cry about those who laugh.”

New Epic Theater won me over with their 2014 Fringe production of Tennessee Williams’ One Arm - it was one of my favorites of the festival and one of two shows I kept mentioning to people everywhere I went that Fringe when they asked me what was really great that they needed to see. Then they repulsed me with their 2015 Fringe 21st century spin on Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray. Now Or Later lands somewhere in the middle. (Because I felt so burned by Dorian Gray, I had to pass on their double feature of The Normal Heart and Coriolanus earlier this year outside of Fringe season, even though I love the play The Normal Heart and was curious about Coriolanus, because it’s a Shakespeare I haven’t seen performed.) It feels on some level that New Epic Theater is devoted to the idea of homosexuals suffering as entertainment, and I don’t have a lot of patience for that.

“I think freedom of expression is more than a temper tantrum.”

Here again, in Now or Later, we have John (Sorenson), the closeted gay son of a politician (Moore) poised to win the presidency of the United States. Everyone is holed up in a hotel on election night, watching the results come in. John is attended by his straight(ish) friend Matt (Colbert) and stalked by his handler Marc (Wieser) because a minor internet scandal is brewing that could reflect badly on the newly minted First Family of the USA. John’s mother (Blagen) also gets in the middle of trying to manage the situation.

“There are things in this world that are bigger than you.”

John thought it would be a good idea to defend the idea of free speech at his Ivy League school against fears by his fellow students who are Muslim that they were be verbally assaulted by hate speech as follows: He dressed up as the prophet Mohamed, went to a sex party to condemn it, grabbed a dildo, and pretended he was fellating his straight(ish) friend. This being the 21st century, there are pictures and video of the incident.

“I have zero interest in becoming a spokesperson for gay people.”

John doesn’t see what the big deal is.
John doesn’t feel like he should have to apologize because - free speech.
And he’s a private citizen.

“It’s a campaign-induced psychosis.”

As everyone else takes pains to try to convey to John at great length - his dad’s the President of the United States. John is not a private citizen anymore. Forget privacy. For that matter, forget the closet. And your boyfriend who dumped you who you keep hoping will call. And your therapist. And the fact that you flipped your car as a teenager because you were trying to kill yourself. Because, of course.

“I’m surrounded by these privileged kids.”

In addition to all the white privilege being tossed carelessly about the room, and all the self-loathing, this cast of largely lily white people - most of them in lily white clothes and/or formal wear, keep going on about how the Muslims must feel about everything. Would it have been too hard to actually have - I don’t know, a Muslim character in the play maybe? Someone who could actually speak to the experience rather than just being continually referenced as a potential annoyance?

“You can’t get elected President if your son kills himself.”

Everyone in Now Or Later does a great job. The acting, the look of the production, it’s all first rate. I just wonder what the point is. Someone else who sees a lot of theater was just raving about this and I found myself thinking, “Did we see the same play?” He said it made him think about all the issues these characters were talking about long after he left the theater, and that’s a mark of good art. With which I would agree. I just didn’t have the same experience. I kept wishing we had a lot less exposition and hand-wringing, and a lot more actual action on stage. The scene between father and son toward the end - that was almost about something. That made me sit forward in my seat. Then there was a jarring symbolic move that confused everyone around me. I explained it afterward because I “got it,” I think. It just didn’t get me.

But that’s not the kind of theater New Epic wants to do. So I should just move on.

It can be hard sometimes when people who are primarily dancers and musicians want to tell a story and make sure that it’s accessible. Al-Bahira Dance Theater’s Fringe show Sleeper was taking aim at Sleeping Beauty/Snow White fairy tale territory with their own take on fairies and evil queens and curses and sleeping heroes roused by others coming to their rescue.

There was liberal use of a narrator (Trevor Hartman) and he definitely kept the energy up and the story moving whenever he was in the driver’s seat. But I’m wondering just how much actual narration they really needed. The prologue/setup was useful, but once the story kicked into gear, the colorful costumes (Laurie Olson Williams) and the dance (choreographed by Artistic Director Mirah Ammal) did most of the talking. The narration was simply repeating things the action was already telling us very effectively. With some simple tweaks to the dance to reinforce relationships and initial character introductions, you might be able to dispense with nearly all the narration after the opening in shadow.

The friendship of a young woman destined to be queen (“Amara” Barb Fulton) and her supernatural pal, a horned red bird called the Saqra (Ammal, again) becomes strained when the queen forgets the bird whose magical powers got her to the throne in the first place. The queen also has the bad parenting instincts to dote on her son and ignore his twin sister.

So when three mystical sisters (“Fareehah” Abigail Smith, “Perizada” Cat Robinette, and “AdaraDin” Ladonna Bartol) get invited to the big royal baby celebration but the Saqra isn’t, the bird has had enough. She takes the neglected girl to raise as her own to become Princess Farah (Alicia Pankratz), and curses the baby who will become Prince Farid (Samson Perry).

When he reaches his 20th birthday, Farid will touch a bird’s feather and die. The mystical sisters, of course, jury-rig the curse so it will just be a deep sleep. Still, there’s bound to be trouble when Farid sneaks out of the house to jam with some street musicians (Eric Breece, Wayne Grimmer, “Dr. D” Dave Lake, and Avni Pandya) and then runs into a whole flock of flamingos - as you do.

Mom was happy to see a group of dancers that wasn’t solely composed of a bunch of young women all as skinny as stick figures. A wider variety of body types is always welcome, particularly at Fringe time. Ammal as the Saqra is clearly the star attraction here in terms of dancing skill, and acting talent. But as I noted above, with the story fairly simple, and easily conveyed in visual terms, I think you could actually trust the dance and the dancers to get the job done, and not feel the need to script so much of it for a narrator. Keeping one dance/one sequence flowing into the next might also allow the story to maintain its momentum. Costume changes, of course, will require some planning. But if the whole ensemble isn’t used in every big number, then maybe some folks can be getting ready while others hold the stage.

Sleeper might still be a work in progress, but some of it works so well already that it might be closer than the artists think, and might need less “conventional” storytelling to get it the rest of the way there.

Some of the first things Mom said (and I had been thinking) after our friend Daniel Pinkerton got through recounting the tales of his brush with the law in his outlaw summer of 1966 were, “He’s lucky it was the sixties. Today, he’d probably be in jail” and “He’s also lucky he was a white teenager in the suburbs.” It’s strange how radically the turbulent current events of the past couple of years can cause you to look at things in a very different way.

“I see you cut short another career in child prostitution.”

Pinkerton’s Grand Theft Autobiography is a tale of fifty years ago that doesn’t scan with the America we see today. That’s got its pluses and it’s minuses. It’s a simple tale of a simpler time. “Borrowing” cars, teenage sexual awakening, forging checks, and running away from home, trying to emulate the fake origin stories of your rock and roll icons, all that seems kind of quaint now. And it’s nice to retreat for an hour into that kind of story.

“Sailors? Reno was 200 miles inland. You have to work hard to find a sailor.”

Pinkerton’s friendly, easy-going delivery makes his story go down easy. And musician Gary Rue and his Fringe band The Delinquents (Megan Mahoney on electronic bass, Kenneth Watson, Jr. on drums, both on backup vocals to Rue’s lead singer on guitar) take Rue’s original songs and give them a 50s sort of Beach Boys bounce and drive. The musical interludes between tales - and on carefully chosen water breaks for the storyteller - give the whole show a little extra oomph to keep the audience focused.

“Next time, when you let me drive a car, be sure to let me know if it’s stolen.”“Don’t worry. They all will be.”

Grand Theft Autobiography is a nicely put together Fringe package that reinforces the truism that we all have a story to tell.

Tweet review - #mnfringe Terror on the High Seas: you'll feel like you've been on a cruise with Les' in-laws, for better or worse :) - 4.5 stars

Do I really need to tell people to go see Les Kurkendaal’s new one-man show, Terror On The High Seas? OK, go see Les Kurkendaal’s new one-man show, Terror On The High Seas. We’re so used to seeing Les do his thing, you might start to think what he’s doing is easy and anyone can do it. Nope.

“Senior citizens are running around in various states of confusion. It’s sheer pandemonium. Like a herd of geriatric cats.”

It’s hard to believe, but Mom and I have been seeing Les Kurkendaal’s shows in the Minnesota Fringe Festival for ten years now. Les is based in California, but he’s a regular on the Fringe touring circuit. Les loves our Minnesota Fringe Festival a whole lot, and we love him in return - it’s why he keeps coming back. If Mom didn’t see Les’ show, it wouldn’t feel like a real Fringe to her.

“I can’t hear my mother-in-law. This is awesome yoga!”

This time, with Terror On The High Seas, Les is telling a story primed for comedy - getting roped into traveling with his white in-laws on a 12 day cruise to Alaska. Les quickly bonded with the other spouses on the cruise who were also signing up for as many of the land-based side excursions as possible in order to escape the ship and their own extended families. There was also the recurring couples tradition of hanging out at the nearly deserted late night party on board. But the real story here is a subtle one, and quite sweet.

“You’re just a vegetarian because that’s a liberal thing to do.”

Oh, Les regales us with imitations of his father-in-law, mother-in-law, brother-in-law, sister-in-law, and their kids. But these are ultimately loving, if humorous, portraits. Though they all may bumble their way through interactions with their son or brother’s black boyfriend, these people mean well. It takes Les a while to realize that the people he’s trying to escape are actually trying very, very hard in their own way to make sure he’s having a good time and feels like a real part of the family.

“Why can’t we go somewhere normal, like Vegas?”

Some of Les’ previous Fringe shows have dealt with larger issues of racism or coming out or alcoholism or body image or caring for aging parents, though always through a humorous storyteller’s lens. Here, as in Nightmare In Bakersfield, where Les accompanied his boyfriend to a school reunion, and realized he was having a bit of a problem being the less noticed (or famous) one in the couple, Les is dealing with some of the nuances of negotiating being part of a team. When that team is a couple, often that means there’s a larger team of extended family. How do you maintain your own separate identity in this context, and what, if anything, do you have to give up - or share - of yourself?

What I neglected to mention in that tweet (140 characters don’t leave a lot of room for complexity) is that it’s a straight(ish) relationship that’s getting a little extra juice from a walk on the wild side in Celebrity Exception. Kayla (Lizi Shea) insists that everyone gets a celebrity exception - one celebrity that, if the opportunity presents itself, you can have sex with them and it isn’t cheating. Kayla’s boyfriend Mark (Corey DiNardo) takes exception to the idea of a celebrity exception, even if the liaison is purely hypothetical. And he’s particularly put out by that thought that the movie star in question is Xander Lucas (Daniel Flohr), who he considers a talentless hack for starring in things like Alien Vampire Hunter, Machine Gun Ninja, and Crack Dealer With A Heart of Gold. The attractiveness of Xander Lucas seems to be the only thing that Kayla and Mark’s sister Steph (Emily Rose Duea) can agree on, since the two women had a falling out over the business they started together, and their slightly checkered (shared) social past.

“Think, Jack! What do you remember, before the orphanage?”“My God! I’m an alien, too!”

When Steph and Mark run into Xander Lucas (in town shooting his latest film) at a local coffee shop, Steph fangirls herself into an embarrassed quick exit. But Xander joins Mark at his table to assure him he has no designs on Kayla. Xander would much rather have sex with Mark. Looks like Xander may get to be someone’s celebrity exception after all.

“It’s like the Queen of England or the Pope. Even if you didn’t want to, you’d almost have to, just for the story.”

I’ve loved Katherine Glover’s script for Celebrity Exception since the first moment we all read it in an early version back in our writing group back in 2014. It was hilarious then, and it’s even more hilarious in the hands of these actors and director Callie Meiners now. It premiered in the Ottawa Fringe last year with a different company, and also had a brief run with this new bunch of artists at the Phoenix Theater this past spring. I was happy to know I’d get a chance to finally see it in our Fringe this summer, and it didn’t disappoint. My mom knew nothing about it going in, other than she’s enjoyed all the Katherine Glover shows she’s seen in the past - Fringe 2009’s A Cynic Tells Love Stories, Fringe 2012’s Dead Wrong, and Fringe 2013’s Burning Brothels. Now, all of those were solo shows performed by Kathernine herself, each one more different than the last. Celebrity Exception is just another branch of Glover’s evolution as an artist.

“You let some strange dude suck you off? That’s awesome!”

The thing that makes the play more than just your run-of-the-mill wacky romantic comedy is the progressive, adult way it deals with sexuality, and the fact that for many people, it’s fluid. You’d think more writers would engage sexuality this way, because it gives you so many more opportunities to tell interesting stories. The characters don’t treat the Xander Lucas/Mark flirtation as something shocking or gross or out of the ordinary. They actually, each in their own way, find it kind of hot, and healthy.

“It’s an inside joke.”“No. Joke’s are funny.”

Xander may be a guy out for some recreational sex, but he’s not the stereotypical predatory homosexual of days gone by, trying desperately to convert a straight man. And Mark isn’t repressed or closeted and then suddenly gay. Xander genuinely wants a pal to hang out with, and Mark reminds him of a guy he once cared for back in his starving artist days acting in theater. Steph is actually more upset (and disbelieving) that Xander is gay than Kayla is angry about Xander coming on to her boyfriend.

“I get all the drama of an affair without the guilt of actually cheating.”

Celebrity Exception is a whole lot of fun - smartly written, directed and acted by all involved. I wish more romantic comedies were like this one - both in the romance and the comedy departments.

Fringe confession: I had very low expectations for Suite Surrender. I even warned my mom we were only going to it because my buddy Mike Hentges was in it (I’d loved him in You and I: Verse last year so much I saw it twice, but this was going to be a completely different kind of show). Also,Suite Surrender just happened to be in the Rarig, where we were seeing nearly every one of our other shows that day. Friendship and convenience aside, the title of the show made me roll my eyes and the description -

It's 1942, and two of Hollywood's biggest divas have arrived at the luxurious Palm Beach Royale Hotel. Everything seems to be in order for their performance...that is, until they are assigned to the same suite!

- didn’t do much to quell my misgivings. However, the same synopsis made Mom think it sounded like a lot of fun. That, plus the fact that they’d sold out their second performance just the day before we saw it for ourselves (and are now a high sell-out risk for the remainder of their run) should have been another promising cue.

“The Palm Beach Ladies For Unity - the P.B.L.F.U.”

Looking up info on playwright Michael McKeever just now, well, the guy is no novice. And it shows in Suite Surrender. It’s a perfect resurrection of the 1930s/1940s style of screwball comedy that was so popular in the movies of the day. The thing moves like a rocket. All nine members of the ensemble are in a nearly constant state of motion. The whole cast has the rapid-fire patter of the acting style of the time down cold. Maddy Brown’s playful costumes set the visual tone that a simple Fringe set on its own can’t. Directors Piper Shatz-Akin and Zach Christensen don’t miss a beat.

“They remind me of my ex-husband. May he rest in peace. Soon.”

The divas (Shawna Bradt, and Shatz-Akin - ok, she’s acting in the thing? now I’m even more impressed), their personal assistants (Grace Curtiss, Caelan Mangan), a gossip columnist (Annie Dillon), the beleaguered hotel manager (Ethan Fogel), his two trusty bellhops (Chris Aubitz, Mike Hentges), and the busybody wife of the owner of the hotel (Sarah Adams) who’s organizing the fundraiser for the troops that’s brought the divas together - all of them careen into one another repeatedly in ever more amusing and unexpected combinations like the Rarig X space is one giant pinball machine for egos and romance. (“Are you my bellhop?” is currently on track to be my favorite line in the Fringe this year, and perhaps my personal mantra for dating hereafter.)

“Miss McFadden, you frightened me.”“I get that a lot.”

Good luck getting a ticket, but Suite Surrender is well worth the effort. If you want laughs, this Fringe’s show has enough for itself and then enough to spare for three other Fringe shows that might need them. I’ve rarely been more happy to be proven a Fringe snob and totally wrong. My highbrow has been brought low.

Reviewing dance often feels to me like trying to explain a joke. If you break it down into its component parts, it’s not the same. I could try to describe for you what happens onstage in Tamara Ober’s first multi-person piece of choreography in Present State Movement’s Of Something Human. Lord knows I scribbled pages of notes in the dark as it went along, trying to split the difference between not taking my eyes off the performers for a second, and not wanting the handwriting to be a completely jumbled mess. But words honestly don’t do Of Something Human justice. You need to see it, take it in for yourself, and get that emotional response that eludes language. And I enthusiastically recommend you do.

To give the whole thing a little context, normally Tamara Ober is doing the dancing herself, creating and performing beautiful and compelling solo dance pieces like Standing On The Hollow (Fringe 2013) and Sin Eater (Fringe 2012), or pulling together dancer showcases like Flesh (Fringe 2011). Some injuries have sidelined her temporarily as a dancer (as evidenced by a rather forbidding looking sling/immobilizer for her arm visible at curtain call), so she turned her talents to creating choreography for other dancers for this year’s Fringe. The trio of dancer/collaborators in Of Something Human - Leslie O’Neill, Timmy Wagner and Dustin Haug - are amazing. Tamara is also working again with video designer D.J. Mendel, providing visuals that are astonishing.

The show description on their Fringe page -

This dance/film work is the explosion and collision of humanity through time and space, war and peace, order and chaos, as it struggles to find moments of cohesion and intimacy in human skin.

But it’s the dancers and the Mendel’s video work together in performance that defy easy summary. Suffice it to say that words like gorgeous, lyrical, and graceful feel like understatements. The video goes back and forth between evocative use of black and white, and color. Images that seem like photo-negative documentation of the dancers in motion give way to periods of rain and smoke, soldiers and fireworks, stars and the earth as seen from space. The rolling countryside, a hot unforgiving sun, and the more comforting illumination of candlelight. The sound of the dancers’ own voices live in the space are overtaken by snippets of news coverage, switching the stations between a cacophony of viewpoints. The dancers themselves start off isolated, then in conflict. Slowly, however, they peel away the layers of their costumes to reveal a final layer that makes them seem more similar than different. The physical stresses of conflict and news coverage fade into more caring, loving and intimate interactions. Finally smiles emerge and banish violence. A threeway embrace toward the end seems both sensual and simply comforting.

Blah, blah, blah. Words don’t equal dance. Seriously, just go and see Of Something Human. If you’ve seen Ober’s previous work, you know the kind of world you may be entering. If you haven’t, this is a chance to see her mind made manifest in the movement of others, which is also a singular treat for the eyes. This isn’t your average generic dance show. This is dance with a distinctive point of view. It’s a way to exercise your brain and your humanity in a way that words spoken or sung on stage do not.

About Me

Playwright, arts writer for Twin Cities Daily Planet and MNArtists.org, blogger mostly about the Minnesota Fringe Festival - www.matthewaeverett.com is my writing website and general web home - still, at the moment, just like the blog title of old says, single